Facebook clicks on Shutterstock for advertising

SAN FRANCISCO -- Facebook is fast becoming a one-stop-shop media company offering services for advertisers.

The world's largest social network today struck a deal with Shutterstock for licensing millions of images that will further that.

Shutterstock's images will be a compelling feature for its more than 1 million advertisers. These Facebook advertising customers will be able to access the image database right inside Facebook's Ad Create Tool. Images -- which will be free to the customers -- will allow them to market on Facebook's News Feed, mobile and desktop ad forms.

"We're making marketing on Facebook an end-to-end solution, from precise audience targeting to ad creation and performance measurement. It's a one-stop shop to help marketers drive their business goals," says Facebook spokesman Tim Rathschmidt.

What this means is businesses wanting to advertise with Facebook will have digital creative assets -- along with the ability to target precise audiences -- readily available without licensing.

Facebook is allowing advertisers to select up to to six images at a time when creating a group of ads in order for them to experiment with which images perform best.

Facebook's acquisition of Parse in April is another piece in its puzzle of completing media-related services. The startup helps companies create apps with its suite of tools that have subscription marketing features as well. Facebook also offers tools that allow customers of these new Parse-created apps to build advertisements on the network.

In the past year, Facebook has helped marketers to boost ad-targeting capabilities mingled with customer relationship management software in efforts to build businesses' presence on the network.

Facebook advertisers will start having the option to use Shutterstock images in the coming weeks.